There are some people in my life that I am very familiar with, and yet, I do not know their likes and dislikes; I don't know where they live...Hell, I don't even know their names!
They are Repeat Nobodys. 'Repeat Nobodys' are people you don't know personally, but you still recognize them...and its not because they did something or they are somebody like a celebrity...they're nobodies just like you.
Some examples of Repeat Nobodys (RNBs for short) in my life are as follows: 'Wedgie Guy'; 'No Lips Lady' and 'Big Watch Douche'. Wedgie Guy is my fave. (By the way, I should probably mention...I like to name my RNBs based on some quality they have that stands out most to me...) Wedgie Guy is this middle aged man I keep running into at random locales, and everytime I see him, he is always wearing the same outfit! (That's probably how I started recognizing him in the first place...)
He wears these black umpire shorts (well, technically, I don't know for sure that they are real, authentic umpire shorts, but they look exactly like the ones they wear...) with a tight red shirt that says, "I put the Grrr in Tiger" tucked into the umpire shorts with white knee socks and gym shoes.
I'm embarassed to admit this, but I am not even entirely sure what Wedgie Guy's face looks like, but in my defense, he somehow always positions himself ahead of me in line, and those umpire shorts give him the biggest wedgie I've ever seen! It can't be comfortable. It hypnotizes me everytime!
No Lips Lady power walks everywhere she goes. I'm not really sure if she really has no lips or if she does really does have some, but you can't see them because she's always pushing them together into a hard, white line.
"Big Watch Douche' really gets on my nerves. He seems to find an excuse to touch me every time I see him, and when I give him the stink eye, he says something like, "Sorry Hun." or "Excuse me, Sweetie." or "Woopsy, Sugar!"
Everyone has RNBs in their life...it's the old lady with the unibrow that always seems to be pushing the shopping cart next to yours; men; women; sometimes even kids; they pop up at the post office, you might even see them driving their car, and yet you never formally meet. After a while, you might start doing a little head nod, acknowledging that you are two people that recognize each other. You may even smile and occasionally say, 'hi' or 'hey'.
Every once in a while, RNBs pop up so much, you end up actually becoming friends with them. That's what happened to me and Aaron a few years ago with Red Cooler Guy.
We were living at an apartment place with a community pool that we liked to frequent on hot summer afternoons. It was almost always semi-crowded...you know, enough people to occupy most corners, but not so many that you get splashed sporadically while hearing snipits of five different conversations, and thankfully, there was almost always enough people to avoid the awkward 'we're sharing a community pool with one other couple that are recreating water-based love scenes on their end of the pool' too.
We noticed Red Cooler Guy because he would always chill in the same corner of the pool with a long, skinny red cooler. It was only as wide as a 12 oz can, and it looked like it held about 8 cans...all in a row like bullets. It had a shoulder strap and Red Cooler Guy was never seen walking without it on his right shoulder. He'd always have it filled up with cans of Bud Light and we'd watch him crack open one after another, shooting them out of that long red cooler like it was a giant pez dispenser.
One time we saw Red Cooler Guy out at a bar that was only a block from our apartment, but we weren't sure it was him. We'd never seen him fully dressed, out in a public place without the cooler. Aaron and I debated for about 15 minutes whether it was him or not.
I noticed that he noticed us checking him out. Shit. "Aaron, he totally sees us looking at him. He probably thinks we're crazy!"
Aaron started laughing and he nodded as he took a sip of his beer. "Yeah..."
"Well, maybe we should just go meet him. I mean, he IS our neighbor, right?"
Aaron gave me an incredulous look. "And how do you suggest we strike up a conversation? 'We've been admiring your long, skinny red cooler from afar for several weeks now?' or how about 'You live at the same apartment place as us. We know because we've been stalking you and your long, skinny red cooler.' or 'Hey, where did you get that cool, long, skinny red cooler?'"
Now it was my turn to laugh. "Well, when you put it that way..." I was hiccuping and cryinging as I croaked, "Do you think we should tell him that we call him 'Red Cooler Guy'??"
Aaron rolled his eyes in mock disgust. "Um...NO, but I DO want to see if he'll tell us where he got that cooler. I want one!"
That night, we did eventually meet Red Cooler Guy, and we came to find out that his real name was Jeff. Now instead of admiring his long, skinny red cooler from afar, we got to reach in and grab a cold one. We hung out with him at the pool a few times a week, and he'd often get up, heading toward the door like he was leaving, and we'd yell after him, "Heading home?" or "Bye, Jeff!" and he'd come running back over and say, "Oh, I'm not leaving. I'm just reloading." Then he'd hold up the infamous cooler.
Yep, it was a real RNB success story.
No comments:
Post a Comment